AstraZeneca’s Iressa took an FDA hit in 2005 as a lung cancer treatment, but a recent study showed its potential in breast cancer patients.

There may be a second life for Iressa, AstraZeneca’s once-promising cancer drug that came to symbolize the hype surrounding a new generation of targeted cancer treatments. Iressa won U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval for lung cancer in 2003 amid much fanfare, labeled by some as a “miracle drug.” Two years later, AstraZeneca (AZN) was forced to stop marketing the drug in the U.S. because it failed in a subsequent clinical trial to help patients live longer.